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The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

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Beckian Fritz Goldberg

The god of the back
must be a lonely god,
god in the shape of man-headed hawk.
Long ago
a man had been sailing the river
and the hawk had been flying beside him
for days. Mornings,
the man would wake and look,
yes, there it was, dark tip-to-tip, the hawk.
His hawk, he began to think of it.
And after a time
he forgot the point of the journey,
he only woke each morning to see
if the hawk was there, to move if the hawk
moved with him, to not rest
if the hawk did not rest. And all of this love
was done in silence, between animal
and animal. There
beside him in the air and there
beside him in the water, the yoke
of the hawk. Once he had a family. Once
he had a city to go to and something
to bring back. More and more
he began to see his life
as a story the hawk was telling
holding the rat of the field in its claw, meaning
There is another world
and I will take you in it.
This
is when he became the god,
god of the back, the beautiful
brow of leaving.